Ju­nior Soogrim cel­e­brat­ed his 13th birth­day the day be­fore he and his broth­er Ja­son, 7, trag­i­cal­ly drowned in a pool at an aban­doned quar­ry­ing site in Va­len­cia on Sun­day.

But as his fa­ther Mar­tinez Soogrim, 30, griev­ed on Mon­day, he called on the po­lice to ques­tion every­one who was at the site when his boys drowned, in­clud­ing a man who may have en­cour­aged them to go in­to the wa­ter know­ing they could not swim. That man, how­ev­er, has not been seen since the in­ci­dent.

Re­call­ing how they cel­e­brat­ed Ju­nior’s birth­day at his moth­er’s Fern Street, Old Va­len­cia Road home on Sat­ur­day, the fa­ther yes­ter­day said, “We all ate lunch to­geth­er and Ju­nior, his younger broth­er Ja­son and sis­ter Jane cut his birth­day cake and put a piece in each oth­ers’ mouth. It was a hap­py time for all of us, as every­one hugged and kissed Ju­nior wish­ing him a hap­py birth­day.”

Soogrim con­firmed that his boys were no swim­mers and showed Guardian Me­dia a portable pool at the back of his house, which he said he bought for his chil­dren so that they would not get the urge to go and bathe at the pond.

Soogrim said he was head­ing to his gar­den to wa­ter and salt his pi­men­to pep­per field on Sun­day when his two sons said they would ac­com­pa­ny him. He said while they were at his gar­den, the broth­ers left and went to the pond, about a quar­ter-mile from the gar­den, un­known to him. Be­fore leav­ing, how­ev­er, Ja­son told his cousin he would be back in 20 min­utes.

How­ev­er, the el­der Soogrim said he was soon alert­ed by neigh­bours scream­ing for help who told him the boys had dis­ap­peared un­der the wa­ter. Soogrim learned lat­er that the boys had joined neigh­bours and their chil­dren to bathe in the pond, which is 200ft in depth.

Soogrim said rel­a­tives and neigh­bours rushed to the pond where they found rel­a­tives of the neigh­bours stand­ing on the bank look­ing con­fused. He said he and his broth­ers dived in­to the pond in search of his sons.

The boys’ un­cle, Jer­ry, found them at the bot­tom of the pond on top of one an­oth­er, with the younger Ja­son on Ju­nior’s back.

“They can­not swim but Ju­nior made an at­tempt to pull Ja­son out but failed and ap­par­ent­ly both of them went un­der­wa­ter and nev­er sur­faced,” Soogrim told Guardian Me­dia.

Soogrim said when the boys were re­trieved they were life­less.

An EHS am­bu­lance was con­tact­ed and they asked the Soogrims to see if they could per­form CPR on the boys un­til they ar­rived. How­ev­er, Soogrim said by then his sons were “al­ready gone.”

Neigh­bours who live close to the pond told po­lice they heard an adult telling the boys to go in­to the wa­ter to see how deep it was. How­ev­er, yes­ter­day they said they had not seen the man since then and be­lieve he was hid­ing from the po­lice.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Soogrims’ Tapana Road home on Mon­day the en­tire fam­i­ly was in grief.

Their younger sis­ter Jane said, “My two broth­ers drowned. I have no broth­ers now.”

As night fell, the boys’ cousins were seen light­ing flam­beaux to pre­pare for a wake.